Adam Hamilton Quotes & Sayings

The sweeping message of the Bible is not a promise that those who believe and do good will not suffer. Instead the Bible is largely a book about people who refused to let go of their faith in the face of suffering. — Adam Hamilton

I'm convinced many of America's heroes are public school teachers and administrators. Many of these people do what they do because of their faith. — Adam Hamilton

Many Christians do not believe God sends tornadoes. But they do believe that God walks with His children through the storms, that He sends His people to help after the storms, and that with and through God, there is always hope. — Adam Hamilton

My aim is that every sermon series I preach is prepared as though I were teaching a college-level course. — Adam Hamilton

You are not indispensable to your church, but you are indispensable to your family. — Adam Hamilton

Our mission at Christmas is not to get stuff for people to open on Christmas morning. It is to be people of hope who let Jesus' light shine through them. — Adam Hamilton

God's most common way of answering prayers is through people. But for that to work, Christians must pay attention and listen, we must put ourselves in a position to see others' needs, and we must respond when God calls. — Adam Hamilton

Everything doesn't happen for a reason, if by this we mean evil is a part of God's plan. But God does ensure that evil will not prevail and that light will always, ultimately, overcome the darkness. If we follow God's lead, our work is to push back the darkness. — Adam Hamilton

We share the gospel with others because we believe the gospel is not just about heaven, but about having life even here on earth. — Adam Hamilton

We don't need mandatory, non-sectarian prayers read over the loudspeaker to 'put God back in schools.' God never left the schools. God is still at work through the hundreds of thousands of gifted teachers and administrators, committed parents, and passionate volunteers who seek to help give our children 'a future with hope.' — Adam Hamilton

I think anger is a normal response to something horrible that someone has done, another human being has done, and to rob people of life, and that's actually healthy to have, to feel that. At some point you have to figure out, 'How do I let that go?' — Adam Hamilton

But the tree represents the freedom that God gives human beings to choose God's way or another way. God deemed the ability to choose to be an essential part of human existence. — Adam Hamilton

Our desire for certainty, our need to be right, and our tendency to miss the point have conspired to keep Christians from experiencing unity, and instead have led to endless divisions within the Christian faith. — Adam Hamilton

The earliest stories in Genesis were not written to tell primeval history. They were written to tell readers about themselves and about God. — Adam Hamilton

I am a pastor, and I teach and preach the Bible to my congregation every week. But the Bible is not a manufacturer's handbook. Neither is it a science textbook nor a guidebook for public policy. — Adam Hamilton

I love the Bible. I read it every day. I spend 10 hours a week studying it. It has affected my life in profound ways. I am inspired when I read it. — Adam Hamilton

God seldom suspends the laws of nature, just as God does not remove free will to keep evil people from doing evil things. — Adam Hamilton

Some Christians see the biblical teaching on homosexuality as reflecting the culture and times in which the Bible was written and not reflecting God's eternal perspective on homosexual people. Others believe these scriptures represent God's timeless will for how human beings practice intimacy. — Adam Hamilton

The ideal is that your faith not be rigid and unpliable, but instead that it is capable of being stretched and remolded over time, and that your theological and spiritual life grows deeper and more mature with the passing years. — Adam Hamilton

The devil can't make you do anything! Resistance is not futile. You can overcome temptation. Where — Adam Hamilton

Husband, when you tell your wife to go for counseling alone (because you think going to see a counselor is a sign you have failed) is like having a car you love overheat and deciding it's not manly to take it to the mechanic. You can keep on driving it but eventually you will ruin the engine. — Adam Hamilton

At the very least they teach us that God does not always answer our prayers, even when we offer those prayers in faith at times of real and pressing need. They also teach us that while God may not answer our prayers as we pray them, God does not abandon us. More than that, these accounts tell us that God works through the situations from which we have not been delivered as we asked. — Adam Hamilton

When sermons start where people live - their questions, struggles, and concerns - and then offer a timely and helpful word from the Scriptures, people are more interested in hearing what else the Scriptures have to say. — Adam Hamilton

Jesus' own witness of sacrificial love and forgiveness, and his work to heal the sick and care for those in need, represent God's ways and vision for us. — Adam Hamilton

When my kids were growing up, I wanted their teachers to teach them science, reading, math and history. I also wanted them to care about my kids. But I did not want my children's public school teachers teaching them religion. That was my job as a parent and the job of our church, Sunday school, and youth group. — Adam Hamilton

The Bible definitely does not teach that those who follow God will have a life of bliss. It describes the dogged faith of those who continue to trust in God despite their suffering, and the comfort, strength, and hope they find in the face of suffering. — Adam Hamilton

While some misuse their freedom to perpetrate evil, millions respond by feeling compelled to use their freedom to do good. — Adam Hamilton

In America our public schools are intended to be religiously neutral. Our teachers and schools are neither to endorse nor to inhibit religion. I believe this is a very good thing. — Adam Hamilton

Our society is divided by the culture wars into the Left and Right, and the United Methodist Church has always stood historically in the center and has been willing to listen to and to bring together those things that often are found in opposite camps. — Adam Hamilton

God's Providence and Human Suffering — Adam Hamilton

We live on a planet that is amazing, beautiful, and full of wonder but not protected from powerful destructive forces of nature. We are capable of doing wonderful and selfless things but also self-absorbed and harmful things. This is the world we live in. — Adam Hamilton

One thing that helps to stretch me is to listen to other preacher's sermons. Every year, I will listen to at least ten other preachers, both to hear God speak to me, and also to evaluate their preaching to see what I can learn and how I can improve my own preaching. — Adam Hamilton

I suspect that here theists and atheists would agree: Human beings have within them the ability to choose evil or good. We wake up each day facing the age-old struggle of good and evil. In some situations, mental illness clouds our judgment. — Adam Hamilton

When people ask me if I'm liberal or conservative, I say, 'Yeah.' I'm both of them. To be a liberal means to be open-minded and generous and open to new ideas. And to be conservative means to hold onto things that are important, things that shouldn't be cast aside. — Adam Hamilton

Jesus consistently put people before rules. — Adam Hamilton

I think that what happens for many Christians is, they accept their particular faith, they accept it to be true, and they stop examining it. Consequently, because it's already accepted to be true, they don't examine other people's faiths ... That, I think, is not healthy for a person of any faith. — Adam Hamilton

God's role in superintending our world and our lives is neither absentee landlord nor micromanager. — Adam Hamilton

Hope is a decision we make, a choice to believe that God can take the adversity, the disappointment, the heartache, and the pain of our journeys and use these to accomplish his purposes. — Adam Hamilton

God's call on our lives is often surprising and usually is based on God's ability to see how our various elements in the past might fit together to accomplish God's purposes in the present. — Adam Hamilton

God does not bring unjust suffering upon God's children. But God will, however, force such things to serve God's good purposes. God will walk with us through the fires and the floodwaters. And God promises that "the present suffering is nothing compared to the coming glory that is going to be revealed to us — Adam Hamilton

Effective preaching starts with loving the people we're preaching to. — Adam Hamilton

If you boiled down the gospel to one word, it would be love. — Adam Hamilton

As a pastor, I have a deep desire to lead people to God and encourage people to pray, read the Bible, and carry their faith into every part of their lives. — Adam Hamilton

Learning to read the Bible in the light of the times in which it was written is critical. — Adam Hamilton

If 'everything happens for a reason,' then every act of evil is ultimately God's doing. — Adam Hamilton

As I've taught our congregation, within the Christian faith the question of homosexuality is not a question of biblical authority, but biblical interpretation. — Adam Hamilton

God seeks to influence humanity. This is at the heart of the Christmas story. It is the story of light coming into the darkness, of a Savior to show us the way, of light overcoming the darkness, of God's work to save the world. — Adam Hamilton

The story of Noah, like other stories in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, are archetypal. Noah's story tells us that human beings have an inherent tendency towards violence both towards their fellow human beings and towards the creation itself. The story tells us that this violence grieves God. — Adam Hamilton

Frequent prayer has great value. On its surface, this sounds simplistic. But if we're to keep prayer at the forefront of our ministry, we and our people have to pray again and again. — Adam Hamilton

Christians believe that God is everywhere and is involved in our lives at every moment, whether we publicly acknowledge God or not. — Adam Hamilton

If God is not sending earthquakes, destroying economies and inflicting pain upon human beings, what is God doing? God works through people, calling them to help their neighbors in need. God comforts His people, walking with them even 'through the valley of the shadow of death.' — Adam Hamilton

And when we feel forsaken, hopeless, and in despair, we pray to one who walked this path before us. — Adam Hamilton

It's not that God won't give you more than you can handle, but that God will help you handle all that you've been given. This — Adam Hamilton

People are drawn to preaching that is passionate and offered with conviction. Passion comes when the preacher has spent significant time with the text, and when God has spoken through the text in a way that addresses the preacher's life first. — Adam Hamilton

The senseless killing of 20 children and their teachers and principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School was not part of God's grand plan. It was a thwarting of God's plan. It was the misuse of human freedom. — Adam Hamilton

Charis, as Paul uses it, is an act of kindness, an expression of selfless love that is completely undeserved and is given without any expectation of repayment. We are never more like God than when we are giving selflessly to others. Because God created us to live in this way, we seldom feel more alive and joyful than when we are serving, blessing, and helping someone else. That is charis. It is grace. — Adam Hamilton

One of the hallmarks of our tendency to sin is that we feel the need to criticize, we take pleasure in gossiping, and we feel qualified to make judgments, often with very little information. — Adam Hamilton

We live in bodies that are fearfully and wonderfully made, yet they are not immune to illness and pain. We have hearts that are capable of experiencing great love, but sometimes they get broken. — Adam Hamilton

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth As fun as the acronym is, the Bible is neither basic nor simply instructions for what to do before you die. — Adam Hamilton

As Donald Trump was campaigning for the Republican nomination for president in 2016 he was asked, "Have you ever asked God for forgiveness?" He replied, "I'm not sure I have. I just go and try and do a better job from there. . . . If I do something wrong, I think I just try to make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't."1 He created quite a stir among many religious people, so he tempered the comments a few days later. But I think he was being honest, and his comments reflect the way many people feel: in theory they believe in the forgiveness of sins, but the concept doesn't really apply to them. Standing in stark contrast to this view is one articulated by twentieth-century existentialist theologian Paul Tillich, who once said, "Forgiveness is an answer, the divine answer, to the question implied in our existence."2 — Adam Hamilton

Why did the earthquake and tsunami occur in Japan? Was it the act of an angry God? No, it was the result of the movement and collision of the earth's tectonic plates - a process driven by the earth's need to regulate its own internal temperature. Without the process that creates earthquake, our planet could not sustain life. — Adam Hamilton

You don't magically become a new person as soon as you slip a ring on your finger. — Adam Hamilton

What if God, in giving us life, invites us to collaborate in writing the story of our lives? — Adam Hamilton

The Bible calls us to love our neighbors, and to do justice and love kindness, not to indiscriminately kill one another. — Adam Hamilton

The human authors and editors of the Old Testament brought their own experiences and presuppositions to the task of writing. We don't often think about this when we read the Bible. — Adam Hamilton

Those who are believers in God find strength from their faith in the face of suffering. They are compelled to give sacrificially to help those in need. And they have the hope that comes from knowing that, with God by their side, the tragedy they are facing is never the final word. — Adam Hamilton